In the seventeenth year of the Republic, in Shanghai's French Concession.
Shen Nian died in the rain on a late-autumn day at the age of eighteen. Her own younger sister exposed her "scandal" in public, her fiancé produced forged evidence, and her father slapped her out of the house. Three days later, a black sedan ran over her. Lying on the ground, she watched Shen Wan smile beneath an umbrella in the crowd, holding Gu Mingqian's arm.
Her blood flowed into the sewer as onlookers pointed and whispered, "Serves her right."
In her final moments, she saw a strange man standing far away, wearing a dark gray changshan and holding a black umbrella. Later, she heard that his name was Huo Huaijin, a powerful Green Gang boss. He had a tombstone erected for her, with only two words carved on it: Shen Nian.
When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to the seventeenth year of the Republic, three days before her engagement banquet.
In this life, she wants no love, no family affection, and no pity from anyone. She will personally send Shen Wan and Gu Mingqian to hell, reclaim the Shen family's business empire that has been whittled away, and rise to the top of Shanghai's underworld, making everyone who trampled over her corpse kneel and pay their debt.
From the French Concession to Shiliupu, from the Green Gang to the Hongmen, from Shanghai's glittering world to the front lines of the War of Resistance. She rejects all ties, lives out her days alone, spends half her life on revenge, and the rest repaying her debts.
She gives away her entire fortune to support the war against Japan, then turns her back on the world and enters the monastery.
This is a woman's epic, and a tale of redemption born from facing death.
The Tumultuous Republic: The Tragic Song of the Underworld Empress
